It is known in the beverage dispensing art to use combined ice and beverage dispensers that employ cooling engines, usually cold plates, to provide heat exchange cooling of various drinks. The ice/beverage dispenser is usually contained in a single cabinet, in an upper portion of which is an ice retaining bin and in a lower portion of which is a cold plate. The cold plate is cooled by a volume of ice gravity fed from a lower opening in the bin into the lower portion of the cabinet and onto and in heat exchange contact with the cold plate. The ice chills the cold plate which, in turn, provides for heat exchange cooling of beverage liquids flowed through tubing chilling circuits embedded in the cold plate. In situations where a cold plate is used in conjunction with a post-mix ice/beverage dispenser, sources of carbonated water and beverage syrup flavorings are connected to the cold plate to be cooled for delivery to post-mix beverage dispensing valves. Carbonated drinks are produced when the cooled carbonated water and syrup flavoring constituents are subsequently mixed together and dispensed from the post mix valves.
An ice/beverage dispenser customarily has four or more, and often eight or more, post-mix beverage dispensing valves for dispensing various selected beverages. The valves are normally positioned along a front surface of the dispenser, normally accommodating access to the dispenser by only one person at a time. In fast food restaurants where a number of customers may be awaiting service of beverage orders, the inability of more than one person at a time to access the dispenser can result in unwanted delays in servicing customers.
To decrease the time required to serve a number of beverages, it is known to utilize, together with an ice/beverage dispenser, a separate remote beverage dispensing tower that is coupled to the ice/beverage dispenser. A beverage dispensing tower typically is a simplified structure consisting primarily of a cabinet for carrying a limited number of post-mix beverage dispensing valves, but the tower customarily does not have either ice retaining and dispensing capability, a cold plate or associated sources of water and syrup. When a remote tower is to be coupled to a base unit comprising an ice/beverage dispenser, a challenge is to make the process of installation quick and efficient while maintaining at the tower good drink quality at required temperatures.
To provide for cooling of beverages that are dispensed from the tower, a cooling system is provided for the beverage liquids. The tower may be a considerable distance from the supplies of beverage liquids, which normally are located at the ice/beverage dispenser, and during idle periods when beverages are not being dispensed from the tower, plain and/or carbonated water and syrup flavorings in a python extending between supplies thereof and the tower can become warm, and if dispensed into a cup can result in an inferior beverage. So that a warm drink will not be dispensed, during idle periods when the tower is not in use it is known to recirculate the water between the cooling system and tower so that it will remain cold in the tubing.
Known systems for cooling plain and/or carbonated water delivered to a remote beverage dispensing tower make use of a mechanical refrigeration system to create a large ice bank in an agitated water bath or can comprise a cold plate. The water line(s) are immersed in the water bath for chilling prior to the water being delivered through a python to post-mix beverage dispensing valves of the remote tower. If desired, the syrup lines for the tower can also be immersed in the water bath for cooling or, alternatively, the syrup can be chilled by the syrup lines being in close heat exchange contact with the chilled water lines in the python. Incoming water to the tower, if not already carbonated, may be carbonated via a carbonator tank and water supply pump associated with the tower. While such refrigeration systems for beverage liquid components delivered to a remote tower are effective, they are expensive to implement and increasing cost constraints have resulted in a demand for less cost prohibitive solutions. A somewhat more economical approach is for the same carbonator as is used to deliver carbonated water to the primary ice/beverage dispenser to be used to provide carbonated water for the remote dispensing tower. However, a disadvantage of this arrangement is that during periods of peak use of the ice/beverage dispenser and remote tower, the ability of the carbonator to continuously deliver chilled carbonated water is compromised.
Establishments in which ice/beverage dispensers are used often serve various consumable items other than beverages, many of which require chilling either to maintain their quality or because they are perishable. Chilling of such products customarily is accomplished through use of a mechanical refrigeration system, which adds additional cost to the food service operation.
Ice/beverage dispensers utilize a cooling engine for chilling beverages served by the dispenser, which cooling engine customarily comprises a cold plate designed to have a cooling capacity sufficient to properly chill beverages served by a dispenser during periods of peak demand, with little surplus cooling capacity remaining during such periods. However, a cold plate could be made to have a cooling capacity in excess of the maximum required to fully meet the beverage chilling needs of a dispenser, in which case it could advantageously be used to chill liquid beverage components delivered to a remote beverage dispensing tower or to chill other remotely located products as may be served by the establishment where the ice/beverage dispenser is used. If an ice/beverage dispenser were made to have such a surplus capacity cold plate, then it would also be advantageous to provide the cold plate with some means that enables a user to selectively couple to one or more of its cooling circuits, without need for extensive modification of its plumbing, for convent transfer of its cooling capacity to a remote location. This would desirably enable a user of the ice/beverage dispenser to use the dispenser either as a stand-alone unit or to retrofit the dispenser so that its cold plate then serves as a cooling engine for product to be chilled at a remote location or to chill product for delivery to a remote location. In addition, because a cold plate depletes ice in contact with it when it is used in heat transfer cooling of product, it would be desirable to provide some means to ensure that a sufficient supply of ice always remains in contact with the cold plate.